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Meet Some of Our Top Commenters

A Presbyterian minister. An electrical engineer. A science fiction writer. These are some of the most influential contributors to nytimes.com.

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Chad Batka for The New York Times; Top right, Zach Gibson/The New York Times; bottom left, Katherine Taylor for The New York Times

In recent years, a core group of commenters have helped to transform The New York Times for the digital era. Their voices have enhanced our journalism, offering new information, insight and analysis on many of the day’s most pressing issues.

These frequent commenters have also become a community, one that has its own luminaries.

But who are they? We decided to take a look at some of the most popular commenters on The Times site, which receives around 9,000 online comments a day.

Here are some of these stars, based on a statistical analysis of how often their comments have been recommended, as well as the judgment of Times comment moderators.

Bassey Etim is the New York Times Community Editor.

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Zach Gibson/The New York Times

LaTosha Plavnik

Centreville, Va.

Display name: DMV74

Age: 41

Occupation: Stay-at-home mom, former lobbyist

Favorite Issues: Economics

Ms. Plavnik comments regularly on the Motherlode parenting blog. “I see that no one has said what I’m thinking, and I’m like, ‘Wait, I can’t be the only person,’” she said.

She said she often sees issues through their future impact on her 2-year-old daughter.

“We’re trying to figure out how to navigate not only her being a woman, which is problematic and dangerous enough in this country, but also being a biracial black woman, and how she’s going to navigate that,” Ms. Plavnik said.

Wow I knew the Republican party didn’t like me because I’m black, pro choice, support equal rights for gays, and don’t believe the answer to everything is either bomb or drill, but I had no idea they also hated me because I’m a woman. Their tent doesn’t really look that big.

Favorite Issues: Income inequality, “Living up to the demands of a functional democracy”

Mr. Carnicelli said he hopes to influence the political dialogue with his comments.

“I think the Democrats are hideous at shaping message,” he said. “They try something for about 10 minutes and when it doesn’t poll well immediately, they drop it. With Republicans, they keep repeating the same message until people believe them.”

“I think The Times’s audience is largely hostile to spiritual concerns,” said Mr. Carnicelli, who describes himself a spiritual progressive. “If you want to get ignored, say something positive about religion. I find that very disturbing, although I can be a harsh critic of organized religions.”

If the economists prescribing austerity as a cure-all were licensed professionals in a reputable field, as opposed to handsomely compensated charlatans hawking a bogus ideology at the behest of a tiny corrupt elite, they could now at least be sued for malpractice.

Favorite Issues: Social justice, conflict and diplomacy, U.S. politics

“I really don’t want to offend anyone,” Ms. Moniz said, referring to her commenting style. “I like to see the evolution of thought.”

She said she enjoys being part of a community that values being informed.

“I never liked TV. I don’t need a lot of other people’s imaginations; I like news,” she said. “And I like reading it as opposed to having talking heads screaming at me about how I should be perceiving it.”

Due process is one of the best things about our justice system. I’m just so sick of the police serving as cop, judge, and executioner and don’t know how the culture that allows them to behave like this will change.

“Socrates,” whose avatar is an image of Buddha, is well-known in The Times’s comments section as an agitator.

“I do like Zen Buddhism quite a lot,” Mr. Handler said. “That’s a reflection of some attempt to achieve a level of balance in life. There’s a leaning toward a philosophical point of view, even though it appears I may be very opinionated.”

He added that he chose Socrates as his handle because it reflects his hope “to discover the naked truth by exposing popular falsities.”

Mr. Handler, who is married with three young sons, says he enjoys pointing out what he calls the “intellectual bankruptcy” of conservatives.

Ms. Simmons, who grew up in the South Bronx, said she started reading The Times regularly only last year, but quickly found her way to the comments section.

“I don’t want to be one of those people who’s just ranting, so …” she trailed off with a laugh.

Ms. Simmons said she was often busy writing federal court briefs, raising children with her partner and catering to family and friends who may have been spoiled by her past baking business.

But she said she relies on the comments section to engage in the issues.

“I don’t have many people in my personal life who I can talk to about the subjects I read about in The Times,” Ms. Simmons said. “The community has become my anonymous friends in a way.”

As a black woman and mother I find this piece to be a tad melodramatic. And I have lost my father and uncles to drugs and street violence. They were not victims of random white racist violence. They were victims of themselves.

“Educate is way too strong a word,” Mr. Luettgen said when asked why he comments. “The Times commenting community consists of pretty mature people and I would never presume to seek to transform people’s ideologies; that’s absurd.”

Mr. Luettgen, a conservative in a community that tends toward the liberal, stands out. Other commenters often praise his views, even if they disagree with them.

He said he believed that Americans don’t honestly confront their differences. “I don’t think he helped,” Mr. Luettgen said, referring to President Obama. “I think he has a unique perch from which to guide such a conversation. He has the skills to get people to sit down and discuss things, but he hasn’t done it.”

“Today the kind of poetry you see is primarily a prose form of poetry, you rarely see anything of a rhyming nature that’s published,” Mr. Eisenberg said, citing hip-hop music as an exception. “My own feeling is that people like rhymes. There’s something attractive about them.”

He said his poems were inspired by the fight against racism and inequality. “That’s something that really disturbs me,” he said. “The killings that are taking place, that are primarily racially directed.”

“I do get people who say they love what I wrote,” Mr. Eisenberg, who served as a radar operator in World War II, added. “They found it very enjoyable, or they got a laugh out of it. That’s of course very pleasant for me to read.”

Mr. Riley said commenters often provide as much helpful information as the articles themselves.

“When I read the article I have a lot of questions, so I find myself going through as many comments as I can to try and answer my own questions,” he said.

He isn’t the type of millennial who grew up with dog eared copies of The Times on his kitchen table. His comments are the result of his search for “an unbiased news source that was factual with a good reputation.”

He particularly enjoys a diversity of views that is largely absent from his daily life.

“I haven’t really met anyone my age, or even around here for that matter, who wasn’t on par with the way I think. I think my town is a lot like that, we’re all similar.”

Big money is only so powerful when you’re equipped with something as far-reaching and influential as the world wide web. Look out 1%, the table is being set, and we’re hungry.

Ms. Regas said she commented to stay sharp as a writer, hoping to get back in the business after completing the education of her daughter, who has both autism and epilepsy.

She also maintains a blog that offers extended analysis of her Times comments and thoughts on raising a disabled child.

“I have the time, I have the inclination, I write,” she said.

This is what bothers people about the Clintons. They should know better. They have to know better. Yet, they still squeak by the rules even when they know it’ll look and sound awful. It isn’t wise. It isn’t classy.

Mr. Rhett regularly comments on racial issues, often from a deeply personal perspective.

“If you think about the history of slavery, slaves had no voice, yet they were able to survive, able to thrive,” Mr. Rhett said. “For all the denigration and all the cruelty of slavery, there was laughter.”

Mr. Rhett is fascinated by how things work, whether it’s “a combustion engine, or a social system.” He explained: “In complexity you find the grains of truth that are common to the principles of progress.”

Why then, so much buzz, the daily media drum, the high poll numbers? Who doesn’t want to see how long a naked man will act as if his condition is normal? Who isn’t riveted by the sight of this curious oddity?

Gemli, who asked that his real name not be used, is by some analytical measures the most popular commenter on The Times’s site.

He averages 354 reader recommendations per comment. There has to be some trick to this, right?

“The first sentence of the comment is key, and it’s usually the hardest to write,” Gemli said. “I can spend a half-hour writing and rewriting the first line.”

“Reading conservative pundits usually gets my goat, especially when they’re denying climate change, or recommending the continuation of economic inequality,” he said. “When they inject theology into public policy I have been known to write a mildly-worded rebuttal or two, after my left eye stops twitching and I regain my composure.”

Education occurs when you’re exposed to the world, and shielding yourself from it means that you’re not receiving an education. If there are things that you find too sensitive to bear, then you shouldn’t attend that meeting or take that course. Stay at home, in your room, with the windows shut and the TV off.

Mr. Rozenblit doesn’t use Facebook or even have a cell phone. “I’m old fashioned,” he said. “If you want to talk to me, then talk to me.”

“Some people like to solve crossword puzzles and they can’t have enough of them,” he said. “Well, I like to write, and it’s incredibly rewarding and incredibly expressive, and I go on the website looking for problems to solve.”

He said he believed that his comments help fulfill his civic responsibility to contribute to a democracy.

“I’ve lost most all my friends as I’ve gotten older, and I don’t have people I can engage in deep conversation with like I used to years ago, and this gives me a platform to do that.”

A confident, powerful male does not openly flaunt his abilities. He doesn’t proclaim his strength at every opportunity. He holds his strength in a sort of quiet reserve. He doesn’t start trouble. He doesn’t even act tough. He doesn’t have to.

“Politics brings out emotions in people and not always the best angels in our nature,” Mr. Rothstein said. He called comments “a therapy for me to vent about things that are going on in the world today. I’m sure I’m not alone, but you always have to try and temper your passions.”

Mr. Rothstein, an avowed history buff, is familiar with the distinct set of night owls who populate the Times comments sections.

“I used to do it more in the evening, and I’d try to go to sleep at night, and I’d find I’d be all wired from having my eyeballs stare at the screen. So I try and avoid that.”

The growth mentality of our present age will bring about a nightmarish future if we don’t get our priorities straight regarding global climate change and the effects of another couple billion humans added to the population in the coming decades.